The Completion of C. S. Lewis (1945-1963): From War to Joy

“This magisterial conclusion to Poe’s three-volume biography of Lewis is dispositive and compelling. Here the reader meets the man, finally: C. S. Lewis in full. Required reading (including the notes!) for anyone interested in the ironies, tribulations, joys, and triumphs of a major figure of twentieth-century world literature.”

“With The Completion of C. S. Lewis, Harry Lee Poe brings to conclusion his discerning and comprehensive three-volume biography. To read it is to walk side by side with Lewis through day-to-day life as well as through the life-changing events of his latter decades. The publication of this book is an event worth celebrating, and all three volumes are a must-read for Lewis admirers, scholars, and critics alike”

“In this third and final book of his entrancing biography, Harry Lee Poe covers an extraordinary continuity of unfolding events and realities—moving from the effects of Lewis’s coming of age to outstanding maturity, marked by ongoing clarity, a gripping imagination, and fresh expression. Poe’s trilogy captures Lewis’s creativity and his seemingly effortless portrayal of the relevance of Christian faith, whether to children and laypeople or scholars and friends. Here Poe’s in-depth and vivid study ranges from the end of World War II to Lewis’s passing. Prior elements of what made the man are fully brought together as concluding elements emerge, such as the grief of losing his wife and deep friend, Joy Davidman, not long before his own death. What Lewis said of his late friend Dorothy L. Sayers also applies well to him: ‘let us thank the Author who invented’ this extraordinary person.”

“Select any event in C. S. Lewis’s life from 1945 to his death in 1963 in Harry Lee Poe’s The Completion of C. S. Lewis—from the Elizabeth Anscombe Socratic Club brouhaha, to Lewis’s tumultuous relations with J. R. R. Tolkien and T. S. Eliot, to his marriage to Joy and grieving her death—and you will encounter meticulously detailed accounts that will not only richly enhance your previous understanding of the twentieth century’s most prominent English apologist, but also prompt you to reassess previously accepted interpretations. A bonus: when Poe discusses Lewis’s Studies in Words, he also provides what could be a thesis sentence for a college apologetics course: ‘How to think as a Christian in a universe made coherent by its Creator.”

“Go into virtually any bookstore in the English-speaking world and you will find a volume or two (or more) of the works of C. S. Lewis. It really is amazing: the reading public seems to never tire of his works of fiction and powerful prose. This fact alone warrants new studies of Lewis’s thought. In this masterful conclusion to his biographical trilogy of Lewis’s life, Poe provides such a study, replete with fresh insights drawn from a lifetime of reflection upon Lewis’s literary corpus. A must-read for all who wish to profit from a remarkable Christian author. In fact, make sure to buy the two preceding volumes, which provide the background for this concluding volume in Poe’s rich biography!”